Hi Lovemysheltie: Thank you for that very pretty picture of pink climbing C. Soupert, is that low-in-thorn? That's a great idea to put climbing rose on the side of a swing! The tulips I planted 12 years ago are gone, but the daffodils multiplied many times. The best plant-payback in terms of beneficial insects here is dill. My Mom gave me dill seeds ten years ago. I sprinkled them near trees' roots - they sprout and host beneficial creatures like ladybugs, toad, and praying mantis. Dill is not invasive since I can kill them in 10 minutes - versus digging up heavy clumps of invasive garlic chives (tested effective against aphids and spider mites).

Well the only advice that I have to give you is to look up a company before you buy from them on www.gardenwatchdog.com and it might save you some money! You might want to go and take a look about what people say about Burgess. Hope this helps!! Carly Here is a link that might be useful: Click here to go look!!

I agree the leaf loss has nothing to do with you over-watering day before. It resulted from the plant's prolonged state of dryness (or if the plant had been moved to a dim corner, from the change in light). If you want to keep the plant's shape and are going to repot and root prune, you need to defoliate the tree completely when you do the repot, otherwise the stems are likely to die back. Defoliate by cutting through the main leaf stem with a scissors. Get a pruning saw and cut the bottom half of the roots off, then work until you have all the soil removed from the remaining half of the roots. Then use sharp bypass pruners to remove large roots that are growing downward from under the trunks or back toward the center of the root mass. Repot with new soil and secure the plant to the pot so it can't move in relation to the pot, and keep soil barely damp. I would put the plant in shade out of wind until it starts to bud back, then move to full sun. Your root mass should look something like this when you're done. The next time you repot, you can remove long roots that tend to circle around the outside of the root mass. I didn't remove them because I'd already removed at least 90% of this plant's root mass. Keep the roots wet at all times while you're working on them. Al

While it is standard to plant mustard or other hyperaccumulators to clean up herbicide residue from contaminated soil (for example, if your have brought in mulch or compost containing post-emergent herbicide residue that you weren't aware of), it is harder to clean up contamination from a pre-emergent herbicide. The problem with planting any plant that is a hyperaccumulator, whether it is sunflowers or mustard or whatever, will be that the chemical accidentally used in the asparagus bed is a pre-emergent herbicide---which keeps seeds from sprouting, so you cannot just sow seeds into that area and expect them to sprout. Assuming the pre-emergent was spread at the proper rate (and since it carelessly was spread where its use is prohibited, I'm no even going to assume it was spread at the proper rate), nothing that is a dicot is going to germinate there since its purpose is to prevent germination of broad-leaved weeds (which are dicots) in a field of grasses (which are monocots). Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any kind of monocots (like asparagus) that are used as bioaccumulators. The reason for this is that monocots are not good bioaccumulators. So, in order to start bioremediation now while the pre-emergent levels in the soil are at their highest, you'd have to start the accumulator type plants, which are dicots, as seeds in some sort of containers either indoors or out, grow them on for a little while and then transplant them into the affected soil. And, if the asparagus bed has been growing well, then there's likely a huge mass of roots underground which, depending on how far below the surface the roots are, might make transplanting something into the bed impossible. Eventually the pre-emergent's effectiveness will wane and some sort of accumulator plant then can be seeded into that area, but that is weeks or months away, and by then, the tissue of the asparagus plants likely already will have accumulated the herbicide residue themselves, which is why this year's asparagus shouldn't be eaten. Since the chemical herbicide in question is labeled for use on grasses (which are monocots), and asparagus is a monocot, I would think that the herbicide shouldn't hurt the existing asapagus plants themselves, other than if any seed from last year's asparagus plants might have sprouted and given you new plants. Those hypothetical new plants might be affected. However, since the herbicide isn't labeled or approved as being safe for use on edible crops, the contamination renders this year's asparagus crop inedible. No one can say for how long the asparagus might remain contaminated since they haven't researched it. That's the whole issue. Anyone from the herbicide manufacturer or applicator company who tries to say the asparagus should be okay to eat in a month or six months or next year is just guessing because they don't have proven research to back it up. If they did have research showing you could use this chemical in an asparagus bed and then eat the aspragus X number of weeks or months later, then they'd have it labeled for use on asparagus beds with the caveat being a re-entry/harvest time of a specified period of weeks or months, and they don't. I am, always have been and always will be opposed to the use of synthetic herbicides of any kind near a garden plot where edible plants are grown. No good comes from it. Between accidental application of non-approved herbicides in food-growing areas exactly like what happened to Carol's asparagus bed, accidental herbicide drift through the air (like what happened to Kim's market garden last year) or herbicide carryover in manure, compost, hay, etc., there's far too much damage done to edible crop areas by herbicide use every year and these things will continue to happen when herbicides are used near edible gardens or farm fields. The contamination is always the fault of the applicator. Always. It is not the fault of the innocent gardener who themselves would never use these products in their edible garden. Since many of us who raise edible crops do everything possible to grow as organically as possible and to avoid using synthetic chemicals in our gardens precisely because we want to raise untainted food (otherwise, we'd just go to the store and buy conventionally-raised produce), this is a serious ongoing issue. When the applicator, who was paid to apply this chemical to the lawn, is careless and contaminates an edible garden where this chemical cannot be safely used, the applicator is legally responsible for the damage done and should fix it. Period. Of course, some companies will try to avoid being held liable for their actions and will brush off complaints and say the food should be fine to eat next week or next month or next year or whatever, but they're just trying to avoid being held responsible now for their actions. And, let's use a hypothetical situation. Suppose Carol was a market grower who had jumped through all the hoops and spent all the money (it takes hundreds of dollars) to become certified organic so she could sell her produce as "Certified Organic" at the local farmer's market. Well, guess what? This chemical contamination would have just rendered her "Certified Organic" certification worthless and, after soil remediation was complete, she'd have to start all over to become certified again and it would take years and a lot of money to earn back the Certified Organic certification. It also might take a lawsuit against the applicator to make them replace or otherwise remediate the contaminated soil and to make them pay the cost of going through the certification process again. They also should be liable for lost income during that period of years since Certified Organic produce sells at a higher price than commercially grown produce. This is why careless applicators should be held liable---because if they get away with being careless, they have no incentive to change.